


Old, Alone, Done For

by magnetgirl



Category: Peter Pan (2003), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: Neverland conspires to bring Hook and Wendy together again.





	Old, Alone, Done For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twizzle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twizzle/gifts).



> The 2003 film is my favourite adaptation of _Peter Pan_ , and certainly my favourite version of Captain Hook, and I absolutely love Adult!Wendy stories so this was a pleasure to write and I thank you for the prompt and opportunity. Thank you also to my beta-readers and cheerleaders.
> 
> Enjoy your holidays!

_December 24, 1942_

Winter was Hook's favourite season, as much as Hook had favourites. Winter, as you well know, was dark and cold and stormy, and thus it suited him, for so was Hook.

"It's like to be a White Christmas, Cap'n!"

In Neverland, snows were few and far between, and seldom fell on the holiday. None of the pirates could remember the last time. They were delighted. Snow made for rough waters so they would not be expected to pillage, and snow meant Peter Pan was absent so they would not be expected to fight. They were delighted and frolicking, like Lost Boys themselves.

"Bah," the pirate snarled at his second from his perch in the doorway. Winter was  Hook's favourite season, but Christmas just another reason to be lonely.

Years back, before Neverland, Pan, and the Jolly Roger, when Winter fell naturally between Autumn and Spring, James looked forward to Christmas. To fairy lights flickering on trees, hampers of goodies, and bright red Christmas crackers. To egg nog, mistletoe, and dancing. But that was long ago. Longer than memory.

"Bah," he barked again and shut himself into his cabin to brood.

 

It might surprise you to learn Winter was also Wendy's favourite season. Unlike the captain, she was a bright, warm, and compassionate woman -- for she has been a woman many years over now -- but she loved the season for what it represented. Beneath the harsh winds and frozen ground of Winter lay all the potential of Spring. Like the kiss of her youth, Winter was a promise.

Also, the snowfall reminded her of Pixie Dust.

Wendy lived in London, in the house she grew up in. She’d lived through bombings there, through the deaths of her brother, mother, and husband. She cared for her father and raised her daughter. It’s her forty-third Christmas. Her first all alone.

At the start of the latest war Father had moved to the country with John's family, and finding they preferred the quiet and slow, they remained. Jane married in summer and joined her officer husband abroad. Wendy was invited to spend the holidays with both, but it was a harsh winter, rationing remained tight, and Wendy was stubborn. Christmas Eves were spent in the nursery.

 

It was an in-between time. Jane had outgrown the nursery a decade back, and John's sons even sooner, but their children had not yet arrived to take their place. The nursery slumbered, like the island, waiting for Pan's return. Wendy held vigil, and a world away, Hook did, too.

As night fell over London and Neverland both, one star, the second from the right,  twinkled brighter than its peers. Wendy opened her window wide and stepped into the arc, as she had three decades before, and listened. For what, even Wendy wasn’t certain. Peter laughing, perhaps, or crying as when she’d first met him. The tinkling chimes of a fairy, or the roar of canons -- but not sirens. She'd had enough of real battles and bombs. She wanted something else.

She heard a harpsichord. A melancholy tune wafting from the dimly lit cabin of a brig, played with one hand by a man she'd never forgotten. A man of deep feeling -- feeling deeply now, thanks to the near empty bottle of wine to the side of his bench. A wind blew past his nose as he played, prompting him to turn to the window, to the deep blue of the sky and the bright star that sparkled over both of them. At that same moment, Wendy looked up.

"I wish," Hook whispered to the star.

"I wish," Wendy echoed watching the sky.

A cold Winter wind blew through the air. Wendy was engulfed in snow. Hook slammed the window closed and returned to his wine. But a knock from the door interrupted. He didn’t answer the first knock, nor the second, and at the third he shouted for whosoever it was to leave. A glance at the clock told him it was just past midnight on Christmas Day and he presumed one or more of his men was drunk enough to try wishing him a merry one.

"I won't," came the answer.

Hook frowned. Only one person addressed him with such impertinence and a quick glance confirmed it was still snowing. Moreover, it wasn't his voice. Nor the voice of any of Hook's men. It was an unfamiliar voice. Though not wholly unfamiliar… something tickled at the back of his mind, the depths of his memory. He stood and made his way to the door.

"What do you want?" he asked the voice on the other side.

"I've come to join your crew."

The pirate's eyes narrowed, for of course he expected a trap. He raised his hook, prepared to slash, as he opened the door. There stood Wendy, but not as Hook had known her so he did not realize it was her. He found a woman. Tall, slim, chestnut hair. Bright eyes. Toothy grin. Dressed in a deep red dress that scandalously displayed her legs. A handsome woman.

"Hello Captain."

She greeted him cheerfully as if she belonged there, as if he should be expecting her. It was disconcerting. Her dress was the color of his wine, perhaps she was a delusion. He reached out with his hook, and she raised her chin, proved to be solid.

"I've come to accept your offer." His eyes flicked to hers. "I do hope it's not too late. I've so many more stories to tell."

Stories?

"When--" he started to ask.

"Not Wendy." She jutted her chin again  "Red Handed Jill."

Wendy… The girl. He remembered the girl. Hook and Pan had sparred so often that the years, battles, and deaths blended together. But he remembered -- Wendy… "Wendy!"

She pursed her lips, and in that moment she looked exactly as he'd known her.

"If you insist."

Something woke within him. A feeling he could not name, nor determine if it was anything he wanted to feel.

"Why are you here?" he barked. Again, expecting a trap.

Her eyes were pools of light. "I'm your friend."

He drew back immediately, hand and hook raised in wary defense.

"You're Pan's friend," he corrected.

"Peter's forgotten me." Her hair framed her face as she lowered her eyes. "I grew up. I grew old."

Peter had forgotten her as he'd forgotten her mother, and her daughter, and on and on. He'd stay young and carefree forever, but he would never know a love greater than that which would fit in a thimble. Thirty years ago she envied Peter and pitied Hook. But she'd grown up and saw the world with wider eyes.

"I'm like you now," she told the pirate as she closed the gap between them.

"Old," drawled Hook, his eyes narrow and cruel, and he stepped aside again.

"Yes," said Wendy, and she followed.

"Alone," Hook continued, leaning into the dance.

"Yes," said Wendy, as she stepped in time.

"Done for," Hook snarled, rough hands pulling her close at the waist.

"No," said Wendy, raising her arms to his shoulder -- but Hook stopped short, abruptly interrupting their impromptu waltz.

"...No?" he sputtered.

"No," said Wendy.

 _Impertinent child._ Hook pushed her away.

"Peter never wanted to be a man. He was afraid." She planted herself between Hook and the door, then his wine, harpsichord, and bed. Wherever he wanted to retreat to, Wendy was there, in the way. "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid?" he repeated. "Of being a man? Husband, father, _clerk_?" He shook his head, tsk tsk tsking like a grandfather clock. "I'm not _afraid_ ," he leered. "I don't -- want it. I don't want to choose _you_ over _me_." He swatted the air between them, barely even a wave. "Go back home, little girl. I don't want you."

Wendy raised her chin in defiance of the dismissal. Hook's eyes were drawn to the side of her mouth, the pucker of her lips as she flashed a crooked smile and ducked away to pour herself a drink.

"I had that," she answered, turning to perch on the edge of his writing desk, brandishing the wine glass and the last of his wine. "Husband. Daughter. Family. A house to run, garden to tend, and country to fight for."

These are the elements of a proper home. Wendy was fifteen when the first war began. It had seemed another adventure at first, and Neal another escape. But her hero had been defined by compassion, not courage, and he'd returned to her damaged. Still, he'd given her Jane, and the comfortable life of a barrister's wife. Wendy was happy in her proper life, but she'd never forgotten Neverland.

"I had it and it's done for."

She raised the wine glass in honor, and took a swig in farewell. Then stood, square-shouldered and clear-eyed. Hook felt a wind blow through his chest.

"But I'm not," Wendy declared. "And I don't have to be good anymore."

She walked back toward him, a decided swagger in her step. Hook watched, entranced and entrapped, feeling unable to move.

"That's why I'm here. I want to be a pirate. With you." She came to a stop, barely inches away, and raised the glass to her mouth. "I want," she murmured as the liquid splashed across her lips, "to be… with you."

Kissing the rim, she lifted the goblet towards her companion.

"Drink."

It was an imperative he felt disinclined to rebuke. Wendy smiled as Hook drained the glass and sent it rolling to the corner. She slipped into the space between his arm and chest, leaned up on tiptoes to brush his ear with her breath. Her long white neck filled his vision, a small golden thimble dangled on a chain, swinging back and forth as she entreated in a whisper,"Tell me about all the adventures we'll have."

The pirate snatched the pendant, straightened to his full, imposing height and tugged, snapping the chain. Wendy drew back with furious eyes.

"You were a silly little girl," he snarled and threw the thimble away to bounce after the rolling wineglass. "And you remain a silly. Little. Girl."

Her slap echoed all the way back to the nursery in London, though no one remained there to hear it. Hook fell back to meet her eyes. A long moment passed.

It was not clear who moved first. Perhaps they moved at precisely the same time. Regardless, once they'd begun, they were a flurry of limbs. Hands pulling at clothes, feet plummeting toward the bed in an awkward dance. With one sharp plunge of his hook the back of her dress split and fell to the ground. Her fingers plucked deftly at the laces of his pants as he pulled her up off the deck and dropped her onto the bed. He fell after, knees pushing her legs apart as he climbed on top of her, grinning like a wolf. Wendy gasped and her eyes fluttered up to meet his. At the sound Hook paused, poised to devour.

"What is it?" she asked, breathless. 

"Your stories."

Wendy's stories were beloved by children and pirates alike, and like Winter, they were a promise.

"Yes?"

Dawn approached from the east, as it always does, sending the first tendrils of sunlight through the window to dance across Wendy's skin. It was Christmas Day.

"They all end in a kiss," James whispered from memory.

Wendy lifted her chin. Their lips crashed together and his eyes filled with stars.


End file.
